u/SheetMetalandGames

I saw a post in r/HonkaiStarRail, about how Trailblaze Chronicles are missed. I also miss them; there's so many fascinating characters that deserve to have a mission centered around them and their stories. I want these back just as fiercely as I want HSR to implement a bond system, and finally let TB mix drinks for Pathstriders in the Party room so that we can learn fun anecdotes (that don't even need to be voiced) about our fellow Pathstriders we meet throughout the game. That's a rant for a different time though so let's stay on topic.

For those players who are unaware, TB Chronicles are side-story quests centered on a fellow Pathstrider or companion. Typically they give more story to some of the characters that we meet in the game, and the closest thing I can compare it to is those special Quests you can do in Genshin for their 5* characters. These were really cool and provided a lot of lore for the characters. And they are deeply missed and I do think that was probably one of the biggest mistakes Hoyo ever made with HSR.

Anyways, now to where Evernight figures into this. I've been seeing some posts in HSR subreddits about how 3.6 didn't introduce Evernight all that well; personally I loved it and it's one of my favorite story beats in the Amphoreus arc. Most.of it comes from a sense of there wasn't much buildup to her existing, aside from the whole "Second March hallucination" thing. Now aside from that being literally the point of Evernight, that we aren't supposed to know all that much about her (y'know, the whole Enigmata thing). I do think it's time that we start to get more Evernight stories or keeping her more relevant in the story since she's a vital part of the game's second most shown protagonist.

Now that seems counterintuitive; the Enigmata and things related to it like Evernight aren't supposed to be understood. They're meant to be speculative. And that is fine, but I think that we should get a TB Chronicle that focuses on March and the rest of the crews views on Evernight, coming to terms with her, formally welcoming her aboard the Express, and perhaps even allowing TB to tell Evernight our answer to the question she gave us at the end of 3.6, on the pier in Aedes Elysiae. And perhaps we can learn more about why Evernight despises the Garden of Recollection so much.

So I've only ever read up to OOTS and I'm just now rereading the series (on Crookedstar's Promise rn). I have not read much past OOTS; maybe a few DotC books.

But anyways, I always thought that there was something odd about the Dark Forest cats. Now, we know that they're dead and evil and they try to use ambitious Clan cats to push their agendas and get revenge or destroy the Clans. Now that's all well and good, just standard evil ghost cat activities honestly.

Except... It does really highlight why the Dark Forest will never win. First off, to coax cats into joining and training under them, they train them to be strictly loyal to their Clans. The same Clans that the Dark Forest wants to destroy. Sure, they find SOME cats willing to betray their Clans (Breezefrost). But most of the time, it seems that this invariably has the opposite affect. Like take Dawn of the Clans. Cats who were trained by the Dark Forest just used their training to help the Clans win the day. It comes at horrible cost and some Clan Cats DID betray the Clans but it wasn't the massacre that the Dark Forest was obviously going for. So why exactly do they keep using the "Be loyal to your Clan first and foremost" line?

I have this as a spoiler because idk how many people have read Crookedstar's Promise. With that said, if you haven't, I recommend it. It's a fantastic book but it really shows that Rainflower is the worst. Cruel, distant, and arguably to an extent that is just evil. Now in fairness her being this way DOES make every other cat look better because they all also begin to have negative opinions of her, but that also doesn't justify any of her actions in the story.

I don't have much to really say about it, but I really do think he's my favorite leader in any of the books.

So I'm currently rereading TNP, and I came across a rather peculiar line in the book referencing an illness I've never heard before nor since to my memory. Blackcough.

To quote: "...weakened by hunger, the Clan would be in danger of greencough and deadly blackcough even more than usual."

Except, to my memory, Blackcough has never been mentioned before in any of the books. It doesn't come up in the first series, and so I'm left scratching my head about this one. I haven't read the books in some time until now, but if memory serves, these are the only diseases mentioned in any of the books, and for the heck of it, my theories on what they actually are.

Whitecough - likely a bronchitis of some sort

Greencough - more than likely pneumonia

The unnamed plague that ravaged ShadowClan and killed Nightstar - This is without a shadow of doubt a reference to the bubonic plague and it actually turns out that cats are very vulnerable to it, which is sorta ironic.

Poison - The illness that killed several Windclan cats during TNP. This is just straight up poison but I'll add it here anyways. Also as an aside, I'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain that this isn't the same thing that forced Mousefur to retire to the Elder's den. It's similar, but it doesn't seem Mousefur was in mortal danger, iirc.

But now we have Blackcough, which to my knowledge no cat in the books is reported to have contracted, but from this single line of text we can assume it is probably one of the most consistently deadly illnesses that the Clans face... So what is it? My best guess is that it is feline tuberculosis. The name Blackcough hints at it clearly being a respiratory disease, and considering the emphasis that the book puts on a disease we've never heard of before in the series, it is clearly significantly worse than greencough, which we've already established is most likely pneumonia. But inadvertently, the book may have actually confirmed this as true by accident. As stated, this disease never comes up in any book prior to Moonrise. Now, while this could just be the Erins upping the stakes to show how screwed the forest is by this point, it also could hint at this disease being so rare that it's not seen often. And indeed, Feline Tuberculosis irl is incredibly rare to see, and it is difficult to treat, requiring intensive care and powerful antibiotics to treat to have even a chance of a cat pulling through. So in Clanlife, this disease would be almost guaranteed to be fatal most cases, which could potentially explain why it's called Blackcough, because it's an illness that is simply just associated with death to most medicine cats. To an extent that could also explain why it's not mentioned prior to this book; because it's a disease no cat wants to risk having to encounter in their lifetime, so it's best to not say it often.

With that said, that is just a theory. I don't know if the Erins have ever actually openly explained or shed much light on the illnesses of the Clans, but I saw Blackcough mentioned and I got hung up on it. Thanks for reading this theory!

So a few days ago someone posted a "Who's hotter, March 7th or Evernight" question. In those comments I replied to someone, suggesting that we should do what Mythus intended. Since we don't have anything else to talk about whilst we await more Evey Lore, why don't we just start speculating Evernight Lore with absolutely no basis or evidence to back it up?

My example was this: Evernight reads every single Evey a bedtime story each night. Could it happen? Maybe. Can it be proven? Absolutely not. Is it adorable? Yes.

So that's why this exists I suppose.

New Evernight Lore: Evernight has a chalkboard or scorecard to track Ws with the following:

March 7th: ♾️

Evernight: *Insert however many Ws as possible*

Everyone else: .......

Anyways I just think this'll be a silly little thing to do.